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The next morning, Anzhela, a young washerwoman who claimed nineteen winters, hurried through the palace corridors. She cursed herself for being late. She must be more careful if she didn't want to be punished for not performing her duties properly.
This morning she was tasked with awakening Sergei Tarasov. She cleaned his rooms often, which gave him the opportunity to pull her into his bed. Anzhela didn’t particularly like the experience. He was rough and insensitive and hurt her sometimes. Anzhela put up with it to keep the palace roof over her head.
Sergei’s father had been murdered in cold blood the previous night. Unlike other men, Sergei did not mourn. He became angry. Sergei Tarasov's anger was downright terrifying. He believed a man called Demidov had done the deed. The Tsar declared the hour too late for a search party to find Demidov the night before, but said one would leave at first light.
Sergei kicked Anzhela out of his bed not long after midnight, saying she’d better wake him in time to go with the search party or she’d be sorry. She didn’t doubt him in the least.
Rushing to his door, she paused to catch her breath, then slipped it silently open. Blackness permeated his rooms. The eastern sky had barely begun to lighten, and the thick skins draping the windows kept even that from getting through. Anzhela maneuvered deftly through the maze of a room she’d often navigated in the dark, until she reached his bedside. The small chest beside it held a tallow candle and a washbasin. Feeling blindly for the candle, she bumped the basin and it ground briefly against the wood of the chest. Surely the sound would stir Sergei.
She expected his hand to reach out and grope her as she worked for the light. He’d done it often enough. As the wick caught, she reached over without looking to shake him awake.
“Sergei, it’s—” She froze. Her hand rested on his arm, in a pool of something wet and sticky. Fear clawed its way into her chest as she slowly turned her head.
And screamed.
*******
NIKOLAI STALKED DOWN the corridors hours later, a small, balding clerk in tow. The clerk wanted to speak to Yehvah and came to ask Nikolai about Yehvah's location. He didn’t seem interested in how Nikolai would know Yehvah’s whereabouts. Someone merely told the squirrelly little man that he would. Nikolai wasn't foolish enough to let the clerk speak with Yehvah alone, though. Not with everything that had happened in the past few hours.
As Nikolai stalked through the corridors, the clerk rushing to keep up, they navigated around clusters of boyars gossiping about the father-and-son murder and whether they might be related. The father’s murderer fled in the night. The son’s appeared to be a thief. All Sergei’s jewels, money, fine clothes, and other valuables had disappeared. A trail of bloody footprints had been left from Sergei’s room to a servants’ entrance. Scandalous, a boyar being robbed and murdered by a thief.
The palace buzzed with the strange details of the event. Sergei's killer had obviously cut his throat while he slept. For some dark reason, the thief also mutilated Sergei's genitals, as if to send some message. But why should a common thief care about Sergei's manhood?
The irony weighed on Nikolai. Only a small handful of people in the world could guess at the reasons, and except for Nikolai himself, none belonged to the boyar class that apparently ran the world. This secret would die with the servants who moved on silent feet through the palace, unnoticed and unknown.
Only someone within the palace could have had both opportunity and knowledge. Since only the servants stood to gain from the death, they'd fallen under suspicion. Nikolai didn't want Yehvah ‘interrogated,’ whether by a clerk with a quill or an Oprichniki soldier with a set of pincers.
At length, they reached the north wing. Nikolai didn’t know exactly where Yehvah worked this morning. Only that she would be in this part of the palace. He stopped to ask several servants. They pointed him toward a corridor of empty rooms. Apparently, the Tsar wanted to throw a ball sometime soon, so the silver needed to be polished. Yehvah made use of the empty rooms to see it done.
A dozen rooms branched off the corridor, the doors all thrown open to air them out. Nikolai headed down the hall, glancing left and right. He glimpsed Yehvah sitting on a bed in a room to his right. Stopping abruptly, he backed up two steps, nearly colliding with the clerk as he did, before entering the room. It had been Inga, not Yehvah, he'd seen sitting on the bed. Yehvah also occupied the room, standing at a bureau on the other side. He wouldn't have seen her by glancing through the door.
Yehvah raised her head in surprise when he entered. She opened her mouth, but Nikolai put a hand up, forestalling her. “Yehvah, this man needs to speak with you. He asked me to bring him.”
Yehvah kept her eyes on Nikolai as the clerk entered, as if trying to read some hidden meaning in his words. Nikolai took up a post at the door, feet planted and arms crossed. His soldier's physique, thick through the chest and arms, looked imposing that way, especially to a puny clerk. It appeared to work. The clerk threw several furtive, wary glances his way before proceeding.
“Forgive me, Yehvah, is it? I must ask some questions. Feel free to continue your work while we talk.”
“Questions about what?” Yehvah's face remained calm and her hands moved steadily, polishing a silver knife in her hands with a tattered rag. Inga did similar work where she sat on the bed.
“As you may have heard, a thief robbed and murdered Sergei Tarasov last night. I wondered if you knew anything of it.”
Nikolai didn't worry about Yehvah’s response. She always handled this kind of pressure well. Inga, on the other hand, he watched closely. He didn’t know what she suspected, but he didn’t want her saying the wrong thing in the clerk’s presence.
Inga kept her back to them, not twisting to look at Nikolai and the clerk. When the clerk asked the question, her head turned ever so slightly to the left, listening to but not acknowledging the conversation. She said nothing, though.
“Why would I know anything of it?” Yehvah asked.
“You are a woman of some power among the servants, are you not? You direct operations and run the day to day workings of the palace?”
“Some of them, my lord.”
“Clerk.”
“What?”
“You may address me as ‘my lord clerk.’”
Nikolai rolled his eyes.
The clerk didn't see. “Have you perhaps,” the skinny man went on, “noticed the absence of any of the servants this morning? Did you hear anything peculiar last night?”
Yehvah appeared to think hard—an act to give the appearance of sincerity—then shook her head. “No, my lord clerk. No noises. All my maids are accounted for.”
“What about other servants?”
“I’m responsible only for the maids, my lord clerk. I wouldn’t know whether others are missing. You’ll have to consult their respective superiors. Anyway, I think it highly unlikely an uneducated woman could accomplish such a grand scheme, don’t you?”
Nikolai hid a smile. Yehvah read people extremely well. She played upon this man’s distrust and underestimation of women. She had ways of protecting her girls. Nikolai understood why they usually worked.
The clerk gave Yehvah a condescending smile. “Of course, my dear woman. These are merely routine questions. If you think of anything that might help, notice anything out of place, you’ll be sure to let me know?”
Yehvah flashed him an obsequious smile. “Of course, my lord clerk. Without hesitation.” She gave him a tight curtsy. Nikolai thought if she held the smile long, she might explode.
The clerk nodded, turning to leave. He jumped in surprise at seeing Nikolai still standing at the door. Evidently, he'd forgotten Nikolai’s presence. Nikolai merely stared at him, and the clerk left the room, perhaps with more haste than absolutely necessary.
After he'd gone, Nikolai stared at Yehvah, and she at him.
“I’m sorry to have brought him,” he said. “They’re investigating and I thought it best to get it over with quickly. Let them ask their questions and be satisfied. You handled it well.”
Yehvah gave him a fleeting smile. “You needn’t worry about me. I’m more worried about my girls,” her eyes cut to Inga’s stationary form, “about what some of them may have heard, and don’t know they shouldn’t talk about.”
Nikolai nodded. “I feel the same.” He heaved a deep breath. “Nothing we can do except wait it out. Keep your eyes on them,” he indicated Inga again, “and let me know if you need anything.”
Yehvah nodded and he turned to go.
“Nikolai.” Inga’s voice sounded different this morning. Shallow, as if she felt ill.
“Yes.” He turned back.
“Did Taras kill Sergei?”
Yehvah’s eyes widened, and Nikolai felt glad they stood in a relatively deserted part of the palace. So far, he'd not heard that suspicion on anyone’s lips. He hoped to keep it that way. Putting one foot into the corridor, Nikolai glanced in both directions to be sure no one stood close by. The corridor was deserted. Nikolai stepped back into the room and dropped his voice.
“There’s no way to tell what happened to Sergei. He’s dead. Nothing more to say.”
Inga stood, turning to face him. “I’m asking what you think.” Her face, the color of ashes, looked gaunt and vacant. Her puffy eyes brimmed with tears.
With a sigh, Nikolai turned and firmly closed the door behind him. Yehvah frowned. She stood across the room from Inga, but her stance toward the young woman grew protective.
“Of course he did, Inga.” Nikolai whispered.
Inga’s face contorted, her voice growing thicker. “Why?”
“Sergei has hunted you a long time. Once Taras left, nothing could have kept Sergei from you. Since you didn't go with Taras...” He swallowed, unable to meet her eye. “It was all he could do to keep you safe.”
Inga shut her eyes, releasing tears that scurried down her cheeks. After a surprisingly short time, she straightened up, pushing her shoulders back and delicately wiping the tears from beneath her eyes.
“Thank you,” she whispered. She walked elegantly past him and opened the door.
“Inga,” Yehvah held out a hand, but Inga had already gone. The door closed softly behind her.
Yehvah and Nikolai stared at one another. The silence grew awkward. Yehvah went back to her polishing, studying it with determination. Nikolai moved to leave when Yehvah’s face crumpled. She put a hand to her mouth to stifle her sobs.
Nikolai crossed the room slowly, not wanting to cause her more pain. When he stood beside her he covered her hand with his, resting the other on her shoulder. “Yehvah,” he said softly. “What can I do?”
She took several deep breaths before shaking her head. “Nothing. There’s nothing to be done. I didn’t want this for her. That’s all.”
“The same thing I did to you, you mean?”
She nodded.
He understood, of course, and felt the wall between them more keenly than ever. The old, melancholy pain still hung there, too. It had dimmed over the years, until he hardly noticed it anymore. But it always throbbed there, hidden beneath the surface. The last few months, it had returned in force. Now it rose up so sharply, his eyes watered.
“Of course you didn’t. You love her.”
Yehvah nodded, still refusing to look at him. Nikolai let out his breath and turned to go. Something stopped him. His hand on the door, he turned to her again. “Yehvah?”
She gazed up at him through watery eyes.
“Would it make any difference now if I said I was sorry?”
She studied the silver she polished. “It shouldn’t, you know," she said softly, the barest note of bitterness creeping into her voice.
He nodded. He’d expected as much.
“But it does.”
His eyebrows jumped. The look Yehvah turned on him held longing and affection. Nikolai hadn't thought hope could ever be rekindled in his chest. With that look, it sprang up and flooded him so suddenly, it took his breath away.
He crossed the room, putting a hand on her arm.
“Yehvah, I know I’ve done you wrong. I have no right to ask anything. I swore I’d never put you in a position to be hurt again. Even after so many years,” he dared to cup her cheek with his hand. “I long for you. Is there any chance?”
Yehvah shut her eyes, a tear sliding down her face. She rested her hand over his. “I hated you for what you did. Oh, your father gave you no choice, but I hated you anyway. The hate cooled with the years. My feelings for you haven’t. If there’s anything I’ve learned from watching Inga and Taras, it’s that our time is always cut short. We must find comfort where we can and hold onto it. Doom encircles us. I don’t want to walk through it alone.”
For the first time in twenty years, Nikolai leaned forward and kissed her. It felt as it always did back then. It felt right. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pressed her cool face into his neck.
He slid his arms around her, remembering how he used to run his fingers down her back, from waist to shoulder blades and back down again. He repeated the action now, and felt as though he'd last done it yesterday, not two decades ago.
She pulled her head back, but remained in his embrace. “Promise me something.”
“Anything.”
“Never leave me again. It would kill me.”
“I would sooner die.”
She nodded and rested her head against him.
A weight lifted from Nikolai’s chest, one he’d carried since before his marriage. He’d become so accustomed to it that he hardly noticed anymore. Now, Yevhah not only filled in his arms again, she’d forgiven him, and the weight simply, miraculously dissipated.
For perhaps the third time in his entire life, Nikolai cried.
